United Hour Podcast - Palace, Pool, Sevilla

On this week's podcast, host Nik (@Rood) is joined by Ed (@That'sHernandez), Craig (@Schmiznurf) & Alex (@Alock1) to discuss United's comeback at Palace, lock down against Liverpool and come down against Sevilla. Also, is Mourinho the worst manager ever?

Ronaldo took extra touch because he could afford it, not sure rashford has reached the maturity level to know when to do what. They say great players have extra yard or two and same applies to touches as well, one touch can result in goal and miss. Great players know taking one touch can be the difference between goal and near miss and when they can afford to do that i.e. belief in your ability.

that was a good listen fellas - nice to remember Rashford's goals vrs Liverpool which feels a distant memory

I'm firmly in the camp that we need an overall direction that a DoF or some sort of football brain trust would give us... something that defines how we play, an attacking philosophy, a commitment to youth, tactical flexibility

this can be adjusted/modernised to meet the needs of a changing game and will ensure that planning is medium to long term.

this vision should provide the general direction for our academy, coaching, scouting, recruitment and appointments

as you pointed out we've lurched from managerial style to style and it stinks of short term thinking.

ideally we are looking for our next manager behind the scenes and planning for Mourinho's replacement - I do like Poch and I think had he 300 million and the ability to sign elite talent then Spurs might take the next step.

It raises another interesting point.... it's obvious we have no clear system we are wedded to as Mourinho is first and foremost a pragmatist. How does a pragmatist build a squad with no clear vision about a style of play. It's clear to see we need some quality in terms of full backs for example but it might explain our short term style signings and the lack of balance- I was all for Sanchez but thought he'd play on the right or as part of a fluid front 3

that was a good listen fellas - nice to remember Rashford's goals vrs Liverpool which feels a distant memory

I'm firmly in the camp that we need an overall direction that a DoF or some sort of football brain trust would give us... something that defines how we play, an attacking philosophy, a commitment to youth, tactical flexibility

this can be adjusted/modernised to meet the needs of a changing game and will ensure that planning is medium to long term.

this vision should provide the general direction for our academy, coaching, scouting, recruitment and appointments

as you pointed out we've lurched from managerial style to style and it stinks of short term thinking.

ideally we are looking for our next manager behind the scenes and planning for Mourinho's replacement - I do like Poch and I think had he 300 million and the ability to sign elite talent then Spurs might take the next step.

It raises another interesting point.... it's obvious we have no clear system we are wedded to as Mourinho is first and foremost a pragmatist. How does a pragmatist build a squad with no clear vision about a style of play. It's clear to see we need some quality in terms of full backs for example but it might explain our short term style signings and the lack of balance- I was all for Sanchez but thought he'd play on the right or as part of a fluid front 3

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Cheers for the feedback - as I said on the pod, I dont totally agree with the idea that there was no plan in terms of managerial appointments - I think Moyes and LvG were both picked due to their track records of working with youth players (obviously there were other reasons as well) as that is one of the main consistent factors in our footballing history. After this kind of planning didnt work they have seemed to just revert to the person with the best winning record in going for Jose and at that point history, identity etc goes out the window.
But the fact is that it is not easy to plan for such things, especially when things go wrong and you have to get rid of someone. However I do understand the point @Alock1 was making and I am not against the idea of getting some kind of DoF, there is a lack of footballing expertise on our board of directors and clearly there was a big hole to be filled after Fergie&Gill resigned.

Traditionally it has always been the manager at our club who is in charge of directing everything football related - I think it was pretty inevitable when you have one guy in charge for 25yrs there is always going to be a period of instability after and obviously it doesnt help when you change manager 3 times in a short space of time. Still eventhough the years under Moyes/LvG are seen as a failure - I believe they did both put things in place to modernise the club systems in terms of player recruitment, training facilities etc that Im sure Jose is now benefiting from.

I doubt there is much work going on to plan for Jose's replacement - I am sure the directors are pretty happy with our progress under him and I doubt they care much about style of play which is obviously worry going forward as Jose will not be around forever.

- I'll always choose to be Pool too lol. One of my best mates is a Pool fan and I would never have heard the end of it lol.

- Sevilla performance over two legs was dreadful, absolutely dreadful. 180 mins of some of the worst football I've seen us play since LvG. You guys were right, no attempt to try and attack. Still really angry at it tbh, not going out but the performance over 180 minutes. On paper we should never had been beaten off them, a really poor showing. And exactly right about Sevilla, they are a poor side and really, the battered us. Not good enough at all.

- Sanchez is trying to hard I think. It's supremely difficult to move in the middle of the season and start pulling up trees straight away and I have every confidence after a good pre-season he will be excellent next season. But for now, he needs to be taken out of the team.

- Lukaku is turning into a real leader for us. I love his attitude and he is constantly trying to get us on the front foot and have a go, and he is improving so much recently. I love the guy and I'm so impressed by him this season.

- Pogba was dreadful. End of. He needs to be further forward probably, but IMO his attitude is crap. He can be a phenomenal player, but he needs to change his attitude I think.

- I'm starting to worry about Jose tbh. The football is really awful at times and the comments were so unnecessary and pissed me off too. He needs to adapt but I fear he won't. I feel like @Schmiznurf tbh @That'sHernandez made the point that he is worried he is not the man long term, and I kind of agree. At the start I thought he would be here for a while, but the longer we have been with him I can't see that happening. I'm happy for him to have next season, but we really need to improve.

- Liverpool game was excellent. Great performance first half, easily could have been 3-0 at half time. I didn't mind the second half as we saw it professionally apart from the own goal. Loved that game.

- Thanks for looking at my question guys, and aye I've had a name change from @FultonRed to @Vault Dweller apologies @Rood
As @Alock1 thought, I was more meaning would people prefer we play that pragmatic style next season (60 mins of containment and a slow start, 20-30 mins of a strong finish where we look to punish tiredness and mistakes by the opposition) if it guaranteed the promise of the major trophies, or the more adventurous style United are accustomed to, that is also unpredictable and we don't know where that would lead us to?
Since the Palace game I have seen so many arguments for both sides, where people back Jose for his pragmatism and support it whereas others are fed up and want to see us go at sides from the off. I understand the safety-first, pragmatic style breeds results more often than not, but long term I do not want to see my team play that way. I want us to be brave and go at teams from the off and while I have no clue what that will bring us, I will enjoy watching us so much more and personally, that's what I want to see most from my team next year. Rambled on there, apologies!

- I'm glad my question spawned quite a large discussion at least

- I'm worried about the long term future of the football side of the club too. I would like to see a change in the structure as we seem to be drifting, and it is worrying.

@Vault Dweller I would accept the pragmatic style if it lead to a league or CL win, anything less and Im going to complain about it

I suppose thats why people have been losing their shit in the last week or so, its been clear that we arent winning the league for a while so going out of the CL means that all the questions about Jose's style come to the forefront

@Vault Dweller I would accept the pragmatic style if it lead to a league or CL win, anything less and Im going to complain about it

I suppose thats why people have been losing their shit in the last week or so, its been clear that we arent winning the league for a while so going out of the CL means that all the questions about Jose's style come to the forefront

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See normally I would say the same, if it brought a guarantee of the biggest trophies. But now I'm not so sure. I have been so disappointed in our play quite a lot recently, completely ignoring the results. I'm crying out for us to be let off the leash and have a go at teams as I really think we have the players that would benefit playing that way. I think I am now at the point where I'd most like to see a shift in the style of play, but I accept that's not going to happen under Jose. Yea you're right about your second part, definitely.

Looking back to our rise in the 2nd half of the 20th century, we totally poached Busby from Liverpool (& City) - He was a City player and then a lauded Liverpool captain who Liverpool had designs on making manager. We absolutely stole him from under the nose of Liverpool. On appointment, Busby then appointed Murphy and Armstrong (chief scout, who was pouched directly from City!)

So what's the point of that? It's in our history, was it all about the visions of single characters? Gibson, Rocca etc..? They Busby was the big character then arguably mixed experiences until we got another "big" figure in Ferguson? Item 1 to fix is our ownership, at no point has our club been used to generate profits that go outside the club. Money United makes should stay for club use.

Mourinho? Woodward? What are our alternatives? Pochetino? He's certainly an option. Arguably we're still paying for having had those confusing, directionless years under Moyes/LvG ... 3 or 4 years of Mourinho after Ferguson might have looked different.

Discussing the manager becomes difficult as sooner or later the media view of him comes to mind. I do wonder what United have to do not to get panned or criticised? I'm a match-goer and our gameplan and lack of more direct attacking football sometimes is very frustrating. We want results and entertainment, they're not mutually exclusive. But you can't have them both all the time. Quite a few of City's games this season haven't been vintage or classic or entertaining, but the results are there (Delph's dive against W Ham for example getting them over the line). There's no doubt that the press and ABUs are loving contributing to the media furore at the moment, the press can literally rock the boat by banging on about this stuff. That's a seperate issue to United fans being happy or not. Maybe the Mourinho years so far are the much talked about "steadying the ship" that was meant to happen post-SAF? At that point the ship was being commanded by someone who'd never sailed a big ship like that before ever, it was unlikely to be steady! We've not "arrived" yet, but hopefully it's something to build from? Of course all the sniping an unsettling from the press is going to make this an issue. City didn't get a hard time last season, despite under-achieving considering £ spent and it being Pep. The press decided he was the GOAT & that was it, players cast aside, money spent, drug test rules broken, FFP bent etc.. football not quite working, but no constant discussions or talk of under-achievement.

Ultimately, no-one knows what Mourinho is like behind closed doors at United. The football might be lacking sometimes, but we've also got players not stepping up and when some do step up it's not enough and that's been a problem since SAF. Let's also remember, it was never always an easy ride under SAF either, and let's not forget that the press regularly trotted out the end-of-season "it's all over for United" stories.

F*** the press, I just hope Jose gets the players to have that siege mentality that SAF apparently did. But I wonder whether it's mentality that's the fundamental issue? The mentality across the first team and individual players. Is that lacking? I think it's clear it is. Is that all that's lacking?

Looking back to our rise in the 2nd half of the 20th century, we totally poached Busby from Liverpool (& City) - He was a City player and then a lauded Liverpool captain who Liverpool had designs on making manager. We absolutely stole him from under the nose of Liverpool. On appointment, Busby then appointed Murphy and Armstrong (chief scout, who was pouched directly from City!)

So what's the point of that? It's in our history, was it all about the visions of single characters? Gibson, Rocca etc..? They Busby was the big character then arguably mixed experiences until we got another "big" figure in Ferguson? Item 1 to fix is our ownership, at no point has our club been used to generate profits that go outside the club. Money United makes should stay for club use.

Mourinho? Woodward? What are our alternatives? Pochetino? He's certainly an option. Arguably we're still paying for having had those confusing, directionless years under Moyes/LvG ... 3 or 4 years of Mourinho after Ferguson might have looked different.

Discussing the manager becomes difficult as sooner or later the media view of him comes to mind. I do wonder what United have to do not to get panned or criticised? I'm a match-goer and our gameplan and lack of more direct attacking football sometimes is very frustrating. We want results and entertainment, they're not mutually exclusive. But you can't have them both all the time. Quite a few of City's games this season haven't been vintage or classic or entertaining, but the results are there (Delph's dive against W Ham for example getting them over the line). There's no doubt that the press and ABUs are loving contributing to the media furore at the moment, the press can literally rock the boat by banging on about this stuff. That's a seperate issue to United fans being happy or not. Maybe the Mourinho years so far are the much talked about "steadying the ship" that was meant to happen post-SAF? At that point the ship was being commanded by someone who'd never sailed a big ship like that before ever, it was unlikely to be steady! We've not "arrived" yet, but hopefully it's something to build from? Of course all the sniping an unsettling from the press is going to make this an issue. City didn't get a hard time last season, despite under-achieving considering £ spent and it being Pep. The press decided he was the GOAT & that was it, players cast aside, money spent, drug test rules broken, FFP bent etc.. football not quite working, but no constant discussions or talk of under-achievement.

Ultimately, no-one knows what Mourinho is like behind closed doors at United. The football might be lacking sometimes, but we've also got players not stepping up and when some do step up it's not enough and that's been a problem since SAF. Let's also remember, it was never always an easy ride under SAF either, and let's not forget that the press regularly trotted out the end-of-season "it's all over for United" stories.

F*** the press, I just hope Jose gets the players to have that siege mentality that SAF apparently did. But I wonder whether it's mentality that's the fundamental issue? The mentality across the first team and individual players. Is that lacking? I think it's clear it is. Is that all that's lacking?

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some interesting point there - totally agree with the comments about how our tradition has always been to have 1 guy in charge so thats why we never went down the route of DoF etc, perhaps we just got lucky to get 2 greats like SMB and SAF though - maybe its too big a job for one bloke nowadays and perhaps its unrealistic to expect anyone to stay long term to really push the club forward, Jose certainly has never been one to stick around.

dont agree with "...at no point has our club been used to generate profits that go outside the club." - Since the Edwards family back in 70/80s there have been owners/shareholders trying to profit from the club, the Glazers may have taken it to a different level but its not a new phenomena.

bang on with comments about the ABU media though - everyone loves it when we lose and you are right that the press predicted Fergies demise on several occasions and he proved them wrong every time. The fall out after losing to Sevilla is bit overdone but there are legitimate questions to be asking about Jose and especially the style of football

Tbh I can imagine everyone may have been too melted and hyper for that immediately after the derby

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We planned to record Sunday night but I passed out asleep early due to previous night's celebrations so it was Monday night, we then had a bit of a delay on the edit as @AR87 got his recording from the last Derby mixed up by mistake !

We planned to record Sunday night but I passed out asleep early due to previous night's celebrations so it was Monday night, we then had a bit of a delay on the edit as @AR87 got his recording from the last Derby mixed up by mistake !